I’m contributing to openstreetmap because I think there should be a free alternative to Google or Apple maps.
Am I running the risk of having my contributions stolen?
OSM is run by a foundation - https://www.openstreetmap.org/about
This makes it a lot more difficult to cock it up compared to a shareholder run company.
Thanks. I’ll continue my small contributions then.
If anyone want to help I can recommend StreetComplete. It’s a bit like pokemon go, but you’ll help improve the map of the world instead. Only in android now I think.
OSM is good people and very much within the FOSS ethos as far as I can tell. Their Humanitarian work is just awesome: https://www.hotosm.org/
Ohhh interesting, just grabbed it on F-droid. I’ll be playing around with this for a while.
Downloading now
Oh I should do that, I’m often in new builds and redevelopments, I’d think that’s where it’s needed most?
I think it’s needed everywhere. I can start it wherever I happen to be and find a lot of “quests/tasks” to complete.
Thanks yeah I’ve downloded it and there are loads of little quests, I’ll give it a try
Open source is a safe bet since anyone can make a new fork(Spin-off) of the original if it went down a direction you didn’t like or just wanted to make a version with your preferred features. So openstreetmap is the current safest option since it has an Open Database License.
Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
The Open Database License (ODbL) is a copyleft license agreement intended to allow users to freely share, modify, and use a database while maintaining this same freedom for others.ODbL is published by Open Data Commons, which is part of Open Knowledge Foundation.The ODbL was created with the goal of allowing users to share their data freely without worrying about problems relating to copyright or ownership. It allows users to freely use the data in the database, including in other databases; edit existing data in the database; and add new data to the database. The license establishes the rights of users of the database, as well as the correct procedure for attributing credit where credit is due for the data, and how to make changes or improvements in the data, thus simplifying the sharing and comparison of data.
Not really , they use the Open Data Commons Open Database License which means it can be used commercial but they have to release changes under the same license.
I don’t think so. But people who donated to Mapilary found out it now belongs to Facebook
Is KartaView better in this respect?
I honestly don’t know. It’s open and quite transparent but who knows when will they sell out. I think “Not Facebook” is their best feature
Mapbox sells your work for a profit.
OSM is the best kind of Open Source.
It CAN be used in commercial products, but any contributions to OSM from those commercial enterprises is still open, so you end up with commercial users contributing to the open system.
I’m in charge of GIS for a city that uses and contributes to OSM and QGIS.
Apple Maps is in part based on openstreetmap https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Apple
I saw one interview with the CEO on Reddit and deleted the app. The guy is an absolute nonce.
So we’re still using nonce then?
So long as you keep acting like one.
Are all of us here aware of the meaning of the word ‘nonce’ or are we using it as a different word for “idiot”?
For the nonce I’ll go with that.
…nonce means paedophile…
Welcome to the party pal - where you get downvoted because you thought the word used to marginalise gay people had fallen out of favour…along with poof and bender.
Yes you can tell by the way he used nonce
Nonce codes are very important for OAuth2 flows
never give a corporation your labour for free.
People should have known this from the beginning.
These volunteers didn’t think about it in these terms.
They gave away their work for free to help people learn languages, and for a long time Duolingo seemed like the best platform for that.Starting your own platform is much more difficult than contributing to an existing one that seems to be operated with some amount of goodwill…
I understand that. Unfortunately, though, one has to expect always the worst from Corps, no matter how “good” they appear to be at the beginning.
If we always assumed the worst no one would buy/accomplish anything. This is not a realistic way to live. The best we can expect to do is making the best decision with the information we have at hand at the time. Of course a healthy dose of scepticism isn’t a bad thing either as long as it doesn’t get in the way of living a relatively normal life.
Poor computer literacy is really biting people in the ass. Quotes like this really stand out to me:
Bit by bit all of our work was hidden from us as Duolingo became a publicly-traded company.
Did you not know that they would be able to do this from the start? Or perhaps you knew and were just being extremely naïve? Either way, not being aware of what kinds of control other parties have when you share data with them is something that’s all too common these days. I really wish people would consider the ramifications of what companies can do when you give information like this to them.
Like giving your phone number away for no reason. The moment you share it, you give companies all they need to start spamming the shit out of you (or giving it away to other companies that will happily do it instead). How is a concept like this so hard to understand?
It’s not that they didn’t know that they could. It’s that they didn’t think they would.
Because—and I say this as a user of Duolingo who first started using it after the old comments were made read-only, but before they were removed entirely—it’s fucking insane that they did. Those comments were so useful to the user. I don’t know how many times I went to them to have some aspect of the lesson explained to me because the app itself doesn’t actually do any real “teaching”, it just tells you that you got it wrong and what the right answer is. The comments from users helped explain the nuance in word meaning, or the relevant grammar rule, helping add enormous value. By removing them they are literally making their product worse for no gain.
People thinking that they’d act rationally wouldn’t expect that.
Same for people contributing to google maps
I mean, I do that for me. If I’m going to a road I want the name and address to be right. I use g maps a ton.
I wrote the comment more as throwing some complementary thoughts. I understand how hard it is not to use google when they provide essential services. Regarding maps, I’ve been trying to use openstreetmaps as much as I can, and adding places using streetcomplete, but every now and then, I find myself using google too.
That’s right, never trust a private company that might go public in the future.
That’s why you should build your communities on Discord instead. 🤡
I’m all in on Matrix. After hearing the words, “Nobody uses IRC anymore, everyone uses Discord now”, I knew we were in trouble.
That shit is the most infuriating thing ever to me. It seems like so many technical discussions and communities are going to Discord now where that information is not indexed or preserved. How many issues have I had where the answer was sitting on a Discord server that will never appear in any general search result?
And here I am just pissed that Duolingo keeps overhauling their whole program. Like, in less than 2 years time, they’ve had 3 different versions of the website and of course it wipes out all of your progress and approximates where you may be in their new system. Except the latest. The latest update just wipes all your shit out and says “good luck fuckface!” I’ve become less and less a fan of Duo over the last 4 years and yeah, not gonna do the AI thing with it anymore. Sari can go on vacation with my one-eyed dog named Max and eat cheese sandwiches for all I care.
Oh look, theft that’s legally protected because something starts making profit! It’s like the existence of the stock market is the central problem with capitalism, since it’s just an excuse to be a shitty person and is only ever used in that capacity. “fuck you, i get more money this way” is a dumb fucking principle to operate a society on. Antisocial, in fact. Google’s IPO can be directly traced to every single problem the internet (and so, society) has right now.
Capitalism is the problem with capitalism. And It’s not an excuse to be shitty, but the cause itself.
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Anyone who has a passion for open source and wants to learn Spanish should check out LibreLingo! It’s also a nice project for people who want to contribute to something that is not owned by a company, though it’s a bit too early for contributors who have language skills but no coding experience.
It looks cool, but I can’t even sign up for it (infinite spinning loading icon). I did a search and it’s been a problem for more than a year at this point, yikes.
Thank you for this!
Any suggestions for other languages? German? Italian?
I like to use Anki with some shared card decks: https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks?search=german
The learning pattern that Anki has configured by default suites me quite well and the app and the card deck is highly customizable.
Mind you, this is mostly only for learning vocabulary, not for learning grammer.
Unfortunately I don’t know of any open source alternative. After another response in this thread I started using busuu.com for French and Italian, and I’m liking it so far. Their business model is pretty transparent, but I find it less annoying than Duolingo so far.
Viel Glück and buona fortuna with your language learning!
I like that’s it’s more real life, the talking, people, subjects etc. Think I’ll use it for a while, because on duolingo I wasn’t evolving much anymore in German, this goes further up it seems
Just as pushy as duolingo unfortunately in ads and mainly in pushing to and rewarding premium.
Yeah, the adds take up some time, but I still find the overall experience less annoying than I did with Duolingo last time I used it. The push towards human interaction, which Duolingo has actively pushed away from, is also welcome.
Duolingo, the dominant player, can simply buy competition like busuu, bypassing the need they’d otherwise have to improve their software.
is there a non-shitty alternative to use that anyone could recommend? would be really interested.
I started looking for alternatives when they added the weird character voices and I started noticing inaccurate pronunciation of kanji in my Japanese course. A lot of people on the message boards recommended Memrise, and it’s been great! The official courses contain actual video and audio of native speakers, so I knew for a fact the pronunciation would be correct—even better than the old Duo voices!
There’s also user-generated content, too, some of which might not be accurate, but most of the user courses I’ve found are pretty good. You can even make your own set and publish it.
(I haven’t visited the site in a few months, so I can’t guarantee it’ll be exactly as I found it, but I doubt it has changed much)
And depending on what languages you’re studying, you might be able to find some good ones dedicated to your language if you do some digging. For Spanish, I used SpanishDict, and for Japanese, I used Kanshudo (both are freemium, with more restrictions than Memrise)
My library offers Mango Languages.
I still had the app installed on my iPhone because I wanted to learn a new language a few years back. Just recently checked their App Store page and saw extensive data collection, monthly subscriptions and some kind of “gem” currency. Immediately deleted.
The gems aren’t as predatory as they seem.
They still seem like unnecessary garbage though.
The only truly useful thing you get from them is streak freezes (basically to keep your streak if you miss a day). I think they’re fine.
It’s a for-profit company. The monthly subscriptions are so that the company makes money. The subscription gives you some extra features and removes ads. Seems pretty reasonable.
As for the gems, that’s part of the gamification. You get gems just from doing lessons. You can spend gems on cosmetic things or on buying a “streak freeze” that lets you avoid losing your “learn every day” streak if you forget or otherwise can’t use the app one day. Maybe you can buy gems too, I don’t know, but they don’t seem that awful. They’re just nudges to try to keep using the app every day, and if your goal is to learn a language that’s a good thing, right?
IMO gamification is good. Learning a language can be boring, especially when it comes to grammar lessons. Making it more entertaining means you’re more likely to want to do it, so you’re more likely to achieve your goal of learning another language.
Having said that, there is definitely enshittification going on. It used to be that the most of the program was available to people without a subscription, and only a few things were “paywalled”. Now only the main path of the main course is not paywalled. It used to be that if you got bored with the lessons you were doing, you had alternative things you could do. Even the main lesson plan used to have optional paths. Now, unless you’re subscribed the only two options are “stories” or the next lesson in the chain.
Since you took the time to leave such a lengthy response I’m going to reply, although the discussion here is pretty much over.
It’s not the single parts but the culmination of all three points; data harvesting, subscription and paid gems (yes you can buy more). Everyone has to make their own decision but for me it justifies never wanting to have anything to do with a company.
lol learning a new language needs gems. Jesus fucking christ
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I just don’t know how I could ever accomplish anything in my life without the totally benign and helpful motivation provided by Gems™. They’re gamerrific! ^Buy some today.^
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Next is they’ll hide half the sentence unless you pay 5 gems.
Just vote with your dollar, unethical companies always lose market competition ☝️🤓
I think you forgot the /s , because real life shows that unethical companies rarely lose market competition. See pretty much every oil company, facebook, microsoft, amazon…
I’ve literally put “☝️🤓” in the end though… Can’t get more sarcastic than that
Guess I’m too old, I wasn’t aware that emoji combo also acted as a sarcasm warning
No worries!☝️🤓 usually signifies a pick-me idiot who thinks they’re the smartest in the room, it’s usually used sarcastically to present a common but idiotic opinion. Emoji combination shows them at the moment of going “Uhm, akshually!!”
I’m not so sure about that.
And the product now is traaaash.
I used to use duolingo to learn every language whenever I visited a country, and I can’t use it at all anymore.
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I never thought the capitalists would steal my means of production!
I just wish there were foss alternatives to Duolingo
They exist, but they often lack the front end polish and they never get the kind of publicity enjoyed by their for-profit peers.
10,000 sentences and OpenWords are others to consider.
Try Language Transfer. It’s free and different in how it teaches.
Just an aside, since this is Technology, but Duo and Duolingo are two very different things.
Duo is an authentication software company.
